By Diane Duke Williams
November 2, 2001
Susan E. Mackinnon, M.D., the Shoenberg Professor and chief of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the School of Medicine, has received a $2.6 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to study the transplantation of donor nerves.
Mackinnon is considered an international authority on nerve regeneration and transplantation and on the use of limited immunosuppression following nerve transplantation. She was the first surgeon in the world to transplant peripheral nerves from a donor cadaver into a patient without the use of lifelong immunosuppressive drugs.
In the past, physicians had few alternatives to amputating the limbs of accident victims with extensive nerve damage to their arms or legs. They were convinced that a patient's body would reject a donor nerve without lifetime use of immunosuppressants, drugs that prevent rejection by suppressing the body's immune system. Unfortunately, these drugs also increase the risk of contracting potentially life-threatening illnesses or of permanently damaging the kidneys or liver. For these reasons, the risks of nerve transplantation were thought to be higher than the risks of amputation.
Mackinnon, however, has successfully transplanted donor nerves into patients using only a temporary course of immunosuppressive medication. Because of her research, patients have not only avoided amputation but also have regained use of their arms and legs.
Mackinnon's grant will enable her to test new donor-specific immunosuppressive
drugs that may allow doctors to transplant nerves for more common injuries.
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